


be still my foolish heart

by asael



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Explicit Sexual Content, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, M/M, Masturbation, Rough Sex, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2020-12-09 15:46:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20997308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asael/pseuds/asael
Summary: Claude has had a soulmark on his arm for as long as he can remember. When he finally meets his soulmate, he isn't sure what to do about it - and then, of course, the war comes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be 3 parts! It'll be updated much more slowly than my collab with Rae, the warmth of your doorways, but I do intend to finish it. This is the first time I've written an actual longform soulmate au so I hope it's fun!
> 
> Based on Golden Deer route, but there won't be many post-timeskip spoilers.

Claude doesn’t remember his soulmark appearing. They appear when your soulmate is born, so sometimes they’re there from birth, sometimes they aren’t. He has even heard a few tales of people whose marks didn’t appear until they were adults, whose soulmate was far younger than them.

In Almyra, those tales are often cautionary.

They lament the loss of freedom, the cruelty of fate that ties a person to someone they’ve never met. Oh, soulmates can be wonderful, certainly, but more wonderful is choosing love, finding it for yourself, making something out of nothing. Those with soulmarks, it is said by the cruel, are the ones who are difficult to love, who have little chance of it without a destined partner.

When Claude hears these things, he understands why his father looks disappointed whenever he catches sight of the mark on Claude’s arm. His father doesn’t have one, nor does his mother. They chose to be together, they fought for each other. They were never fated to love each other.

His mother doesn’t have one, but she doesn’t have quite the same pity in her eyes when she sees Claude’s. One afternoon, when he’d had a particularly hard time of it, when the barbs and taunts had not quite slid off him the way they usually did, she held him close and whispered that in the Alliance, soulmarks were not viewed so poorly. They were not treasured, perhaps, but there were romantic stories about them, stories where people found each other and fell in love and only then discovered they’d been soulmates all along.

It’s comforting, at the time. Later, Claude thinks that Almyra and the Alliance are not so different: both lands think soulmarks should be hidden, that love is more valuable if it’s discovered without fate forcing it. Not everywhere thinks like that, but both his homelands do.

Maybe that’s why it is so difficult to hear _you only have one because no one would ever choose to love a halfbreed like you_.

Claude doesn’t believe it’s true. He doesn’t want to. Sometimes, when he’s alone at night, he traces the mark on his arm - a moon and star intertwined, delicate and complex, so beautiful. He thinks that what it really means is not that someone is destined to love him regardless of what they want, but that somewhere out there is a person who suits him perfectly, who can be strong where he is weak and weak where he is strong, who will accept him fully despite what he is.

_Because_ of what he is.

He chooses to believe that in the same way he chooses to believe so many other things: that Almyrans are not simply savage beasts, that folk from Fodlan are more than simple cowards, and that the combination of blood in him will never be all that he is.

The same way he chooses to believe that he can change it all, that he can make a better world.

He chooses to believe that, and so he ignores the disappointment in his father’s eyes, he ignores the taunts of those around him. He survives the hatred and the anger and the assassination attempts. He survives it all, and he dreams of a better world, and eventually, he leaves Almyra.

Not to find his soulmate. That, Claude knows by now, may never happen. It could be anyone in the world, and simply having a soulmark doesn’t mean you will find the person whose mark matches yours. By the time he leaves Almyra, he keeps it hidden, and he hardly looks at it. 

Keeping your mark hidden, if you have one, is the custom in Fodlan as well, as it turns out. In the Alliance, it’s just like his mother said - the people of this squabbling collection of lands believe that while soulmarks are all well and good, and add a touch of romance, it’s best to know your soulmate as a person before you know you are destined for them.

The Kingdom, on the other hand, values soulmarks highly and keeps them hidden because it is believed that showing them off is a form of bragging. Only one in five people, or perhaps less, have soulmarks. If you are fated for a love like that, you are lucky and rare, and should not advertise it.

The Empire is similar, and improves upon this idea with ritualized moments when soulmarks should be shown and when they should be hidden. Claude finds both this stance and the Kingdom’s to be charming, but unfamiliar. He has never really felt all that lucky just because he was born with a mark on his arm that matches someone, somewhere.

If anything, he feels unlucky. 

He has other things to think about, anyway. He is named the heir of House Riegan, and he believes that his ambitions may be possible - that he can change this land, and someday, Almyra. He is accepted to the officer’s academy at Garreg Mach Monastery, and he knows that there he’ll be able to set the foundation, to begin to see if change is truly possible.

He wants to open Fodlan up, he wants it to be a place that can accept everyone, he wants equality and peace and happiness.

Claude’s ambitions are large and lofty, and so the idea of ever finding his soulmate is set aside, the mark on his arm nothing more than something to be concealed out of politeness or shame or simple necessity. He doesn’t really think about it. He wears long sleeves, and smiles, and pushes it from his mind.

And because fate is a fickle beast, that’s when Claude von Riegan meets his soulmate.

He doesn’t realize at first. Sparks don’t fly when their eyes meet. His heart doesn’t skip a beat the first time his soulmate says his name.

But he does think to himself, distracted by a thousand other things, _oh, he’s awfully handsome, isn’t he,_ the day he meets Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.

It doesn’t stand out. He meets plenty of attractive people in his first few days at Garreg Mach, some of them in his house and some not. Claude divides his attention about as equally as he can, trying to learn as much as he can about his new schoolmates as quickly as he can. Certainly, Dimitri gets more attention than some, but that’s because he’s the leader of the Blue Lions and the future King of Faerghus.

As it turns out - in the most romantic Alliance tradition, perhaps - Claude finds that he likes Dimitri well before he discovers they’re soulmates. Dimitri is just so _earnest_, sincere and upright, with enough secrets to pique Claude’s curiosity. He is kind and chivalrous, a good leader for his house, and it doesn’t hurt that he _looks_ like a storybook prince.

But it’s also clear there’s more to him than that, even if Claude doesn’t yet know what that ‘more’ is.

So he’s interested in Dimitri. They share conversation sometimes, and Claude teases him more-or-less gently, and sometimes Dimitri disapproves and sometimes he doesn’t seem to mind. They speak about monastery business, or politics, or history, or their respective houses. Nothing very intimate. Nothing very deep.

Claude spars with him once, and gets thoroughly beaten - Dimitri is excellent with a lance, unnaturally strong, and Claude’s strength is not in hand-to-hand combat (though he didn’t think he was _terrible_ at it, either - his ego is soothed when he later sees Dimitri win a contest of strength against Raphael, because how could he possibly be expected to beat that?). 

He knows Dimitri reasonably well, for two people who don’t share a house. He wouldn’t call them _friends_, but they get along decently, and yes, he likes Dimitri. Claude likes him, and Claude thinks he’s handsome, and if he sometimes lets his thoughts run away with him - well, that’s got to be normal for boys his age.

And all that would have been fine, if he hadn’t seen the mark on Dimitri’s arm. The one that exactly matches his.

In retrospect, once he knows, it seems obvious. The crest of Blaiddyd is a star, or resembles one. The crest of Riegan is a moon. His soulmark, and Dimitri’s, is an intricate combination of a moon and star, interconnected and inseparable. It doesn’t exactly resemble their crests, but once Claude knows, it’s impossible not to see the connection.

He would not have guessed, though. He would never have guessed that his soulmate was _Dimitri_.

He sees it accidentally, of course. It’s after the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, and they’re celebrating, and he _likes_ Dimitri, who has taken his defeat in stride and come along with his house to the celebration. Edelgard is there too, and so many others, and it feels like a vision of what Claude wants someday: equality, friendship, all these different people coming together to just _be_, not caring about what divides them.

Claude is with Hilda, laughing as she teases Ingrid about something or other. Dimitri is sitting a couple tables down, merry as anyone, the darkness that’s sometimes in his bearing gone for the moment. He’s deep in conversation with Caspar, who has no soulmark but has never seemed to care, and Annette, who long ago found her soulmate in Mercedes.

Later, he thinks that’s what they must have been talking about. Soulmarks, and fated connections, and what that means for each of them. That’s the only reason that Dimitri, a proper Kingdom lord, would duck his head in that embarrassed fashion, a touch of red rising to his cheeks as he rolls up his sleeve to reveal his soulmark.

Annette, his housemate, doesn’t look surprised. Caspar laughs, and claps Dimitri on the shoulder in congratulations, and says something that Claude can’t hear. He’s not trying to listen, anyway. He can’t look away from the moon-and-star on Dimitri’s arm.

If someone had been watching Claude in that moment, they would have seen his smile fall away. They would have seen it fracture under the realization that he has met his soulmate, that they are right there in the room, that he likes them. That he doesn’t know what to do with this information.

No one is watching him. He recovers his smile, though it can be seen nowhere in his eyes, and turns to Hilda to make a joking comment about Sylvain, who they can both see trying and failing to flirt with Leonie. Ingrid scoffs. Dimitri rolls his sleeve back down, polite as ever, covering his mark up.

Claude cannot forget the sight of it against Dimitri’s pale skin.

***

Claude realizes, sometime in the days following the realization that Dimitri is his soulmate, that he never really expected to find them. Somehow, on some level, Claude had come to unconsciously assume that he would never meet his soulmate, never have to deal with the consequences of that fated bond.

And he realizes that, uncharacteristically, it terrifies him.

Logically, there are plenty of reasons to be hesitant about discovering the future King of Faerghus is his Goddess-fated partner. For one thing, Claude is both the heir to the leader of the Leicester Alliance _and_ the son of the King of Almyra. The political ramifications are immense. Would they even be allowed to be together? Dimitri will be king, but Claude’s grasp of the Leicester leadership is far shakier, and a bond like that with the leader of another nation might be enough to undermine it completely. Who could ever believe that he was unbiased in their dealings with the Kingdom, after all?

Then again, it’s possible the bond would be welcomed, would be seen as an opportunity. Surely, the lords might think, the Kingdom would have no choice but to support the Alliance. Surely this would mean a new era of partnership, trade, peace between Faerghus and Leicester.

But Dimitri’s family has certainly known of his soulmark since he was born, and Claude knows it wasn’t announced publicly. That’s a canny political move, leaving him open for marriage alliances that might be refused if it was widely known that the future King had a soulmate somewhere. He doubts that was Dimitri’s decision - not the earnest, kind boy he knows - but he can see the sense behind it. Even for kings without soulmates it’s not uncommon to marry for political gain while keeping another lover behind closed doors.

There are more than a few stories like that. Stories of nobles and lords and even kings or queens who married because they had to and later found their soulmate. Usually, these stories end in tragedy or with the inconvenient spouse out of the picture, but they’re just stories. The reality, Claude knows, is much more practical.

He’s always been a practical person when it comes to political maneuverings like that, but even so, when he thinks of Dimitri marrying someone else, someone faceless and chosen just for him, Claude’s stomach churns.

Which is ridiculous. He likes Dimitri, he _does_, but how can his feelings have changed so quickly? How can he become upset at the thought of Dimitri with someone else, when he is sure he wouldn’t have cared only days before?

But maybe he would have. Maybe he always would have.

Maybe that’s just how this kind of thing works.

Or maybe Claude is just… kind of falling apart, now that he’s confronted with the reality of a soulmate. Now that it’s more than just a mark on his arm. For once, he has absolutely no idea what to do.

He could tell Dimitri. Maybe he _should_ tell Dimitri. Maybe they’d fall into each others’ arms and everything would be perfect. 

Maybe. But Claude remembers, so clearly, a boy his age jeering that the mark on his arm meant no one else would love him. Then, later, overhearing two adults tsking over what a disappointment it would be for his soulmate when they discovered that _Claude_ was the one they were bound to.

He’d thought at the time he’d heard that by accident. Now, older and wiser, he knows that he was meant to overhear it. That it was said to hurt him, to remind him what he was: less than them. But knowing that doesn’t mean it hasn’t stuck with him.

Claude has endured a lot. Hatred, disdain, hurled insults and fists. Assassins. He’s endured them, and endeavored to rise above, to let them forge him into something stronger, someone who can bring hope to others. He has survived and flourished, despite everything.

But he thinks that if he told Dimitri, if he tugged his sleeve up to show his mark and there was even one moment, one _second_ of disappointment in Dimitri’s eyes, it might shatter him.

So, in the end, that’s what it is. Claude is afraid, and so he says nothing.

Oh, there’s more to it than that. Of course there is. Claude’s life has already changed simply because he now knows who his soulmate is. If Dimitri knows, too, things will change even more. They’ll have to confront it, have to decide what it means, what they will do about it. Claude isn’t ready for that yet, doesn’t even know what he _wants_ to do about it. If only he knows, then right now it’s only his burden, and he can choose to do nothing.

Claude never intends for this state of things to last forever. He thinks he’ll tell Dimitri soon, he’ll find the right moment, just as soon as he’s leashed his fear and figured out what he wants from this strange, fateful bond.

He does, in fact, fully intend to tell Dimitri. But he waits, because he thinks he has time, and that’s where it all goes wrong.

Because Claude waits, but the world doesn’t wait for him.

***

There are two moments before everything falls apart where Claude almost tells him.

One is after the ball. A pleasant enough evening, all told - Claude even manages to coax their taciturn professor into a dance. He only finds his eyes following Dimitri every once in awhile, and for a few hours he manages to ignore all the pressing business of the world: the things that happened in Remire, the strangeness building behind the scenes, the whispers of something coming.

He just dances, and laughs with his friends, and enjoys himself.

And, when he sees Dimitri slipping out of the room, Claude follows before he can think about it, before he can continue the endless debate over whether to tell and when.

“Tired of dancing already, Your Princeliness?” he says, and Dimitri turns, surprised. His shoulders, briefly tense, relax when he sees Claude.

“I needed some air, that’s all,” he says. And Claude can’t blame him. Inside it’s bright and lively and loud, while out here - out here, the moon is high in the sky, the clouds parting to reveal glittering stars. The night isn’t cold, the breeze isn’t too strong, the moonlight shines in Dimitri’s hair like silver.

Claude very badly wants to kiss him.

“Can’t blame you for that,” he says instead. “You’re pretty popular. Even Marianne danced with you.” And for that Claude couldn’t help but be oddly grateful. Marianne hadn’t even wanted to attend the ball, not really, but she’d been talked into it by Hilda. Claude had kept half an eye on her for part of the night, to be sure she didn’t hate being there, and he’d seen Dimitri quietly ask her to dance. He’d seen Marianne’s shy acceptance, too, and how polite Dimitri had been with her - giving her plenty of space and quiet conversation.

He’d already known Dimitri was kind. It had been an odd experience indeed, feeling both grateful for that kindness and jealous that he was not the one receiving it. It was a ridiculous sort of jealousy, considering that Dimitri was Claude’s soulmate and that Claude was well aware what Hilda and Marianne got up to when alone. Neither had a soulmark - neither needed one.

“She is pleasant company,” Dimitri says with a faint smile. “And an excellent dancer.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Claude says, answering that smile with his own. “You ran before I could corner you for one of my own, though.”

Surprise flickers through Dimitri’s eyes then. Claude can’t read him well enough to tell if he’s pleased or not, and he supposes there is some part of him which said that simply to see if Dimitri might welcome the idea.

He can’t tell.

“You had plenty of partners of your own,” Dimitri says, and there’s something almost hesitant about the tone of his voice. For a moment Claude lets himself imagine that Dimitri _wanted_ to dance with him, that perhaps he’d looked across the room to see Claude in the arms of someone else and felt - jealousy? Desire?

But that’s a self-indulgent thought, and Claude knows it. There’s little chance Dimitri has felt either of those things while looking at him, soulmark or not - not when he doesn’t even know they match.

Or maybe he has. Truth be told, Claude doesn’t really know how it works. He has a burning curiosity, a desire to learn about everything he can, but soulmarks? Everything he’s found about them had been contradictory and confusing. The most he can gather is that it’s widely accepted that your soulmate is the best possible match for you - but that doesn’t mean you _have_ to be with them.

He’s not even sure if matching soulmarks mean that you will fall in love with them. Some sources say soulmates can be platonic, while others claim that platonic soulmates are merely convenient excuses for soulmates who cannot actually be together. Some books say that love is inevitable, others that the mark means only that if you do love them, it will be a deeper and stronger bond than any other.

But plenty of soulmates go their whole lives without meeting, so what does that mean for ‘fated partners’?

Is he fated to fall in love with Dimitri, and Dimitri him? Or, if he never tells Dimitri, will they go their separate ways and find love elsewhere? Not as strong as a soulmate, perhaps, but still real?

He doesn’t know. In the end, he supposes it doesn’t matter. He _will_ tell Dimitri, when he’s ready, when he’s made peace with all of this, when he’s decided how he wants to deal with it. He just needs time.

But he has to admit that, more and more these days, when he looks at Dimitri he finds it hard to look away.

There, under the moonlight, he can’t at all.

He’s lost the thread of the conversation - not normal for him at all. What were they talking about? Dancing, that’s right.

Claude smiles, and he holds out his hand, and he says, “it looks like we’re both missing partners right now.”

And Dimitri raises his hand as if to take Claude’s, and Claude thinks, _I’ll tell him now, I’ll tell him while we’re dancing_, because he’s not really ready but it’s perfect, isn’t it, how could he turn down a moment like this? Even if he doesn’t yet know what to do about their marks, even if he doesn’t yet know what it means, how can he stop himself from telling Dimitri here, under the moonlight, in each others’ arms?

But Dedue steps from the ballroom and says, “Your Highness,” and Dimitri looks away and his hand falls, and it turns out Felix is on the verge of getting into an actual duel with someone, and then Dimitri is apologizing sincerely and hurrying away.

Claude watches him go, unable to decide whether he’s relieved or disappointed.

So he misses his first chance. And it would have been too soon, maybe, but later, after it’s far too late and he’s full of regrets, he thinks that it might have been perfect.

***

The second time is much more embarrassing.

Dimitri has been on his mind often, of course. Claude has noticed him more, looked at him more, found reasons to speak to him more often. No one else seems to have noticed, not really, though Hilda has given him a couple of funny looks after he spent a little too long chatting with Dimitri about the complicated politics of Faerghus.

Dimitri is taking up more of his thoughts, and Claude has to admit that as he gets to know Dimitri better, he likes him more. Dimitri is very likeable - all blue eyes and blond hair, insane strength and trained skill, awkward politeness and earnest speech. And behind it all, shadows that Claude can’t seem to put his finger on.

He wants to find out what they are. He wants to learn more, he wants to learn all of what Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd is. 

And unfortunately, the amount of space Dimitri takes up in Claude’s thoughts seems to correlate directly to the amount of dreams Claude has about him.

At first they’re innocuous. He dreams about lazing around in a classroom with Dimitri, sunlight through the windows, Dimitri smiling at him. He dreams about walking together through the monastery, almost like reality but Dimitri looks at him longer, holds his hand while they walk side by side. He dreams of the warmth of Dimitri’s hand in his, the way it might feel to press his fingers against the mark on Dimitri’s arm.

And those dreams would be fine, except of course that isn’t where it ends.

As his thoughts fill with Dimitri, his dreams get more intense. He dreams of Dimitri’s mouth against his, hungry. He dreams of Dimitri’s hands pinning his wrists down, leaving Claude open and wanting beneath him. He dreams of their bodies against each other, his thigh between Dimitri’s legs, and he wakes up aching and embarrassed.

And then one night he wakes up in the middle of the night, shaken from a dream where Dimitri was sucking marks into his thighs, and he can’t take it anymore

He hasn’t done this yet. It feels wrong, for all that Claude has never had many compunctions about giving himself pleasure when he needs it - for stress relief, or because he’s all wound up, or just because he’s bored. But he’s never been the sort of person who imagined someone else while doing it. It was always faceless bodies, hands and mouths, cocks and pussies, never with someone attached to them.

Maybe because Claude never let himself get that close to anyone. Maybe because there was never a face _to_ attach to those bodies. Maybe because even trying made him feel vulnerable in a way he didn’t like.

But now there is, and he gives in, he lets himself think of Dimitri.

He’s hard already from the dream. He pushes the covers off and wraps his hand around himself, breath hissing out in the darkness of his room. He feels hot, he feels embarrassed, even though there’s no one there to witness any of it.

He thinks about Dimitri’s mouth on his, his tongue in Claude’s mouth. The drag of his teeth along Claude’s collarbone. He almost doesn’t like how intense it is, how good it feels, the slide of his hand while Dimitri haunts his thoughts. 

The clean line of Dimitri’s shoulders, his pale skin flushed with desire. His eyes on Claude, a hunger in them that Claude has never seen but that he can imagine so, so easily. Dimitri wanting him. Dimitri pressing his thighs apart, reaching down to touch him, hand callused from lance practice -

And that’s enough, that’s it, that’s all it takes. It’s _stupid_ how little it takes, it’s unfair, he didn’t realize he’d started wanting Dimitri this much, but that’s all it takes and then he’s coming, biting his lip to keep from making any sound.

Afterward, Claude thinks he should feel more ashamed than he does. Instead, he mostly just feels resigned. Of course it would come to this. Of course his days of observing Dimitri, knowing that Dimitri is his soulmate, have had an effect. Of course he wasn’t immune to Dimitri’s appeal. Claude, of all people, is not immune.

It’s the next morning that he almost tells Dimitri, because when he sees him outside the dining hall, he finds himself blushing like a child. He thinks for a moment of every vision that filled his head the night before, everything he thought of while he was jerking himself off, and Dimitri is _there_, and real, and it all feels like too much.

This secret wasn’t intended to be kept. He needs to tell Dimitri.

“Are you all right?” Dimitri says, concerned because Claude has paused outside the entryway, and it’s on the tip of Claude’s tongue.

_I’m fine, it’s just we’re soulmates, that’s all._

But he doesn’t say it, and even he doesn’t know why, except maybe that he’s still afraid of what it would mean for him. He’s afraid of disappointment in his eyes, and the derailing of all his plans, and misery for the both of them. Claude doesn’t often do things out of _fear_, and he doesn’t like the way this sits on him, but he still doesn’t say anything.

He smiles instead, and says something inane, and they both go eat breakfast. Separately.

Claude tells himself that he will tell Dimitri, and he fully intends to. He just needs a little more time.

But Dimitri isn’t the only concern in his world, and as it turns out, neither of them have time. War comes, and death, and Claude’s small concerns about his soulmate are swallowed up in larger concerns about oh, Edelgard betraying all of them and setting out to conquer Fodlan. Dragons appearing, somehow, suddenly. His professor’s disappearance in the midst of it all.

The last time he sees Dimitri is on the battlefield, blood on his face and only fury in his eyes, and it isn’t until later that Claude thinks, _I never told him._

Claude is not a creature made for regrets, but he regrets this. He regrets his fear, and his caution, even while being aware that it would have made no difference. Showing Dimitri his soulmark would not have changed anything that happened at the monastery, would not have stopped the war, would not have changed their fates.

But maybe it would have given them some tiny piece of happiness before it all fell apart.

That’s what Claude truly regrets.

The next time he hears Dimitri’s name, he’s being told that Dimitri committed crimes, was captured, has been executed. His gut twists, the world falls out from around him. He didn’t know, how could he not know? He excuses himself in a rush, finds a quiet corner, peels up his sleeve -

And it’s still there. His soulmark, as flawless as it always has been.

He knows then that Dimitri is not dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude knows Dimitri isn't dead. When he begins to hear rumors of a creature haunting the Kingdom's border, he starts to think that there might be something he can do about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience!! It took me a bit longer than expected to finish part two. And (worse news) I have a few projects I need to finish before I can complete part three. But it will happen!

War is upon them.

Edelgard’s actions have thrust all of Fódlan into chaos, and the Alliance is no different. Despite supposedly being its leader, the Leicester Alliance has not at all rallied behind Claude. He has his hands full trying to keep everything together, walking a thin line to keep nobles from defecting to the Empire. Claude’s days are full, his nights are sometimes sleepless, most of the time he feels like he’s barely keeping his head above water. Barely keeping them all from falling into Edelgard’s hands.

And of course, there is Dimitri.

When Claude learns of his capture, he’s in no position to go charging in to rescue him. When he learns of the execution - well, even though he knows it isn’t true, what can he do? He has no idea where Dimitri might be. All he knows is that his soulmark is intact, that his soulmate is alive out there somewhere.

In a battle between Claude’s heart and his head, only one can ever be triumphant.

Dimitri is alive out there somewhere. Claude doesn’t know what condition he might be in, whether he might need help, whether he is alone or with allies, injured or whole.

All he knows is that he cannot look for him.

Leaving the Alliance, leaving this precarious balancing act he’s performing, would cause everything to fall. Soulmate or not, alive or not, Claude cannot abandon the Alliance - abandon _Fódlan_ \- for one man.

Alone in the dark of his bedchamber, he traces his fingers over the mark on his arm and wishes he had told Dimitri. Perhaps if Dimitri knew, he would come to Claude for shelter. Perhaps if he knew he would have sought out his soulmate, found the safety that Claude could provide him, instead of disappearing into the cracks of the Kingdom of Faerghus.

But even if Claude can’t walk away from the Alliance, even if he can’t search for Dimitri, there are things he can do.

He has spies in Faerghus, of course. Most of his attention is - must be - on the Empire, but Faerghus presses against the borders of the Alliance, and he would be a fool not to keep an eye on it. The tumult there is obviously Edelgard’s doing, and while he doesn’t think a threat is likely from that direction - not with so many of the lords still rebelling - he can’t count them out either.

His spies watch the ebb and flow of politics within Faerghus, watch how Fraldarius and Gautier hold out against the empire. Claude is heartened to see it, and for a time thinks Dimitri may have gone to one of them for shelter, but it doesn’t take long to discover that isn’t the case. It would be impossible for them to not use him as a rallying point, and even if they were trying to keep him a secret, it would be one too large to keep for long.

That was the closest thing to a lead Claude had. 

He tells his spies to keep an ear out for rumors about the executed king, but there is little else he can do.

Months pass before anything changes.

Months of headaches and arguments, false smiles and compromises. Months where the Alliance teeters back and forth on knife’s edge, Claude’s tireless scheming and the efforts of his allies the only things keeping them from falling into the abyss.

He is in Daphnel, meeting with Judith and Lord Gloucester - Lorenz’s father, who despises him and who, in turn, he really cannot stand - when things change.

Gloucester has been a constant headache. On the border with the Empire, Claude knows full well that he would be happier allying with Edelgard. He knows messengers have passed between them, and he knows that the only reason it hasn’t happened yet is these near-constant meetings, Claude massaging his ego and convincing him to wait, over and over again.

After a long dinner spent doing that (and thank the goddess for Judith, with her practicality and staunch support), Claude is in the rooms provided for him. His spies have delivered another sheaf of reports, and he can’t sleep until he’s read them through, sifting them for any tiny detail that might help the Alliance’s cause.

Chances are decent he won’t be able to sleep anyway.

It’s in a report from a traveling merchant, a man who’s been in Claude’s pay for years. He almost passes over it, but something makes him stop and reread the passage.

_There are rumors of a beast in the mountains, along the border between the Empire and Faerghus. This beast has attacked and destroyed multiple squads of Imperial soldiers - massacred is probably the better term. Some say it’s a troop of rebels, fighting back against the Empire, but anyone who goes investigating is found dead as well._

There are plenty of other small scraps of information in the report, but that’s the one that sticks with Claude. That’s the one he turns over in his mind that night when he can’t sleep, a tiny seed of suspicion growing. Intuition, really. He can’t come to any conclusions based only on that information, but - he wonders.

His stay at Daphnel will last for months, and so he takes the opportunity to send someone to look into the rumors.

By the time he gets the next report, Hilda is there with her latest update on House Goneril and Holst’s actions on the border with Almyra, and she’s the only one who sees anything amiss. Because of course she is.

“You think it’s a demonic beast?” she asks casually, leaning over his shoulder and peering at the report. It doesn’t have a lot more information, but it gives Claude a general location and passes on more detailed rumors. “It’s not like we can go charging into the Kingdom to slay it.”

“A demonic beast that only kills Imperials?” Claude says, and she makes a soft _hmm_ sound. Her eyes are sharp on him, and she slides up onto the desk, displacing a pile of papers so that she can sit.

“You don’t think they’re rebels either, do you?” Hilda has always been observant. 

“I think it could be Dimitri,” he says, looking at her, half a smile on his face. Her eyebrows raise.

“Dimitri is dead,” she says, but she doesn’t say it as if it’s a fact she believes. She says it as if she’s merely debating, pointing out a possible flaw in his logic. Claude debates as well, turning it over in his mind, but - this secret of his.

He’s kept it for so long.

“He’s alive,” Claude says, and there’s something about the tone of his voice, the certainty in it, that makes Hilda sit up straight.

“You’re sure,” she says, and it’s not a question. She peers closer at him. “Did one of your spies see him?”

“No,” he says, and takes a breath. His hand doesn’t shake as he rolls up his sleeve, but Claude is acutely aware that no one has seen his soulmark since he was a child.

“Claude,” Hilda says slowly, “you never told me you had a soulmark.”

“I didn’t,” he acknowledges, and they’re silent for a long moment. He knows that she knows. He wouldn’t be showing it to her otherwise. He also knows that, this time, she’s going to make him say it.

So he takes a breath, and he does.

“Dimitri has the same one.”

Hilda reaches out, as if to touch it, but stops short. Claude’s mark is flawless. They both know what a soulmark looks like if your partner is dead - they both saw it on Ingrid’s arm, back at school. It looks like a burn, like a red-hot brand has been pressed to your skin and used to brutally destroy the sign of your soulmate. Claude has feared waking up to see that for so long now.

She doesn’t ask if he’s sure. She doesn’t ask _how_ he’s sure. Hilda knows him better than that. She only asks one thing.

“Does he know?”

And Claude shakes his head.

Hilda looks sad, for a moment, sad for him, and Claude looks away because he doesn’t want to see that. He’ll never know if telling Dimitri at the Academy would have changed things, but he’ll always wonder.

“If he’s alive out there, I have to find him,” he says.

“This might not be him,” Hilda says, almost gently.

“But it might be.” Claude taps the report on his desk. “It’s the best lead I’ve gotten, and - well, I just have a feeling. I’m going to go look.”

“_You’re_ going to go?” Hilda stands up at that, slipping off his desk. “Into Kingdom territory? Wait, let me guess - by yourself?”

Claude grins. “It won’t take long. Just a quick trip there to find out if it’s him, and I’ll be back before you know it. If I go alone, I’m much less likely to get noticed.”

If Hilda were anyone else, she’d probably tell him that he’s risking too much. That he is practically the only thing holding the Alliance together, that anything might happen while he’s traveling alone. That what he finds might not be Dimitri at all, might be something far more dangerous.

But Hilda knows him better than anyone else. She knows he’s already made his decision.

“At least let me come with you to the nearest town,” she says. “I really don’t want to be part of the soulmate drama, but I’ll watch your back on the way there. You’ll probably fall down a ravine if I don’t.”

Claude expected an offer like that. Was hoping for it, in fact - because he knows that this might be dangerous. Entering Faerghus isn’t anywhere near as dangerous as venturing into the Empire alone would be, but they’re still at war. He ought to bring some kind of backup, and he trusts Hilda more than anyone.

“I’m leaving in two days,” he says, and she groans.

“Ugh, fine. I’ll be ready.” A pause, and then Hilda meets his eyes, serious and quiet. “I really hope it’s him.”

“Yeah,” Claude says, and he looks away, gaze drawn to the mark on his arm. The one he’s never shown anyone before. “Me too.”

***

The journey into Faerghus is relatively easy. Claude and Hilda part ways at a small town nestled in the mountains, Hilda taking a room at the tiny inn to wait for him. She complains, because of course she does, but Claude can see the worry in her eyes.

He doesn’t let it stop him.

He rests in the town for one night, promises her he’ll come back in two weeks even if he hasn’t found Dimitri - even if he hasn’t found anything - and heads into the mountains.

Claude isn’t a tracker. He has rudimentary skills in that area, things he picked up at the Academy and over the course of this war, but he would never claim to be an expert. Luckily, he doesn’t have to be. The locals were very clear about which parts of the mountains are the most dangerous, which parts Imperial patrols have gone missing in.

Claude’s plan is simple: go there. Make enough of a nuisance of himself to attract attention. Try very hard not to die if it turns out whatever haunts the mountains is not Dimitri.

It is, perhaps, not the best plan. But Claude has always been good at thinking on his feet, and he trusts himself to figure things out.

He has his bow and arrows, an axe just in case things get tight, a supply of food - if anything, Claude wishes he could have brought a wyvern, but that would have attracted entirely too much attention. 

And so he goes searching for a beast, or a man, or - hopefully - a missing king.

As Claude suspected, it doesn’t take him long to find what he’s looking for. Or rather, it doesn’t take him long to be _found_.

He realizes he’s being stalked pretty quickly. A shadow in the trees, pacing him. A feeling of being watched. But it’s not a beast, it’s too canny for that, and so Claude stops. He finds a relatively clear area, his back against a cliff so he can’t be attacked from behind. He has to be cautious, even if he thinks he knows what he could be facing here. After all, he could be very, very wrong.

But he’s not.

The sun is beginning to set as Dimitri paces out of the darkness between the trees. He’s different, so different that for a moment Claude isn’t sure that it’s him. But the hair, the lines of his face - there’s an echo of the boy Claude once knew, altered so irrevocably that he could almost be someone else.

“Dimitri?” Claude says, and his mouth feels suddenly dry. Whatever he expected, it was not this.

He’s taller, which - is a little unfair, actually, because _Claude_ didn’t get any taller, but somehow that feels like the least of the changes. His hair is shaggy, uncut. His armor is battered and his cloak is dirty and torn. He’s clearly been living rough, with no one to look after him.

But more than any of that are the differences in the way he holds himself, like he could explode into violence at any moment. The way he moves, like a predator. The way he looks at Claude, eyes narrow, intent on him but also somehow distant. Claude is suddenly not sure Dimitri will know who he is, will care.

He’s not sure Dimitri is sane.

“Dimitri,” he says again, and his voice sounds raw.

Dimitri moves closer. He has a lance in one hand, and it looks like there’s still dried blood on the blade. Claude does not reach for his weapons, though in the back of his mind is the creeping feeling that perhaps he should.

He had imagined many things about meeting Dimitri again. He did not imagine that he would feel - unsafe.

“What are you doing here?” Dimitri says, and his voice sounds rough, unused. “Are you haunting me now, too, Claude von Riegan?”

Claude doesn’t know what to make of that, so he simply shrugs. In this moment, he thinks, when Dimitri is so very clearly unstable, the best thing to do - the only thing he can do - is be as stable, as _himself_, as he can be.

So he summons up a smile. It’s not quite as easy as it should be, but he knows Dimitri rarely saw him without one back at school.

“Not as far as I know,” he says. He doesn’t move. Dimitri is still watching him so, so closely, his hand still gripping that lance. Unbelievably, Claude fears that if he moves Dimitri will strike. “Pretty sure I’d have to be dead for that, and no one’s managed yet.”

Carefully, slowly, he holds out his hand.

“Ghosts can’t shake hands, right?”

Dimitri moves, so suddenly that Claude barely has time to react. And in the time he does have - he chooses not to.

If he moves, it becomes a struggle. Not a battle, necessarily, but and push-and-pull. Claude retreating, showing fear or caution, acting like a rival or like prey. That’s not what Claude is here for. That’s not what he wants.

So he doesn’t move, he doesn’t use that split second to jump away, to block Dimitri from moving, to stay out of his range. Instead he lets Dimitri shove him up against the hard rock cliff face behind him, lets his back slam into the rock with no more than a wince. He lets Dimitri wrap a gauntlet around his throat.

And he remembers, very clearly, seeing Dimitri back at school, on the training grounds, accidentally shatter a practice lance with nothing more than a slip of his inhuman strength.

“See?” he says, and smiles. “Solid as anything.”

The gauntlet around his throat tightens. Not enough to hurt. Not enough to cut off his air. Enough to remind him that it’s there.

“Did you come to kill me, then?” Dimitri growls. His eye is a slit, glittering blue. His other hand still holds his lance, though Claude can be thankful it is at least not yet pointed at him. “For _her_?”

Claude’s smile grows just a shade more genuine, though he’s sure Dimitri can’t tell the difference. “You’ve been in the mountains for way too long if you really think I’d be running errands for Edelgard.”

At the sound of that name, Dimitri’s grip tightens, and this time it does cut off Claude’s air. For one long moment, then two, he can’t get anything in his lungs - and then Dimitri realizes, and relaxes his grip, and Claude can breathe again.

“Then _why_ are you _here_?” Dimitri demands, leaning close, and Claude is sure he should be frightened by this - Dimitri, larger and no less strong, barely holding on to his sanity, hand on Claude’s throat - but fear isn’t what he feels.

“I was looking for you,” Claude says. He lets his smile slip away, lets his expression become something more genuine. “I knew you were alive. I just didn’t know where to find you.”

“To all of Fódlan, I’m a dead man,” Dimitri says, so close to Claude now, teeth bared. “Who told you I lived?”

“No one needed to,” Claude said, and it’s then he raises his hands, slowly, slow enough that Dimitri knows he means no threat. The gauntlet tightens anyway, but Claude doesn’t flinch. He uses one hand to pull his other sleeve down, baring his arm. Baring the soulmark that’s been on it for years.

Dimitri stares.

Claude remembers being so afraid. So frightened, down to his core, that Dimitri would see this mark and be - not horrified. He never expected that. But disappointed, maybe. Dissatisfied. Wanting something better, something more than a strange boy who no one trusts. He remembers knowing that if even his soulmate didn’t want him, it would hurt him in a way no one had managed to in years.

That fear has never quite left him. But he has so much more to fear now.

Even so, he doesn’t see disappointment on Dimitri’s face. He doesn’t see anything. Only blankness as he takes it in.

Then Dimitri lets him go and steps back. There is no word that Claude can find to describe the expression on his face except, perhaps - _lost_. It’s the first time since Dimitri entered the clearing that he’s seemed anything but angry.

It’s gone in a moment, his brows drawing down, that anger returning, now laced with confusion. “Is this real?”

If it were anyone else, Claude would think the question was really _Are you lying?_ But he is beginning to think, with a sort of quiet dread, that Dimitri said what he meant. That reality, to him, is a slippery thing.

What did they do to him in Fhirdiad?

What happened because Claude was unable to save him?

He focuses on this moment, on the Dimitri that is in front of him, instead of on the boy he once knew. The boy he couldn’t save.

“It’s real,” he says. “I’m real.” He holds his arm out still, the mark on it dark and clear, undeniable. Dimitri’s eyes flicker from his face to his arm and back, and Claude has no idea what he’s thinking.

Then he surges forward and Claude’s back hits the cliff again. This time Dimitri’s hand isn’t around his throat, though, this time it’s in his hair, dragging his head back, and Dimitri’s mouth is on his.

Dimitri kisses him roughly, hungrily. He kisses Claude like he’s trying to prove something to to himself, like he needs this certainty that Claude is real. He kisses like he’s biting, like an animal.

And Claude moans against his mouth and kisses him back.

This isn’t how he imagined their first kiss might go. Claude has imagined it a thousand ways - he’s even imagined it never happening, both of them living their lives apart forever, despite the mark they share. But he never imagined this, not Dimitri’s aggressive, angry kiss, not the way Dimitri uses his superior size and strength to hold Claude down while he does so.

But even so, it sets every nerve in his body alight with desire. Dimitri’s body presses against him, long and lean and hard, and Claude feels - he feels like he never really has before.

It’s not that he hasn’t felt desire before. It’s that it hasn’t felt this consuming, this overwhelming. Whatever plan he had for after he found Dimitri has fallen out of his head completely, replaced by desire, by need. He kisses Dimitri, and he doesn’t stop, and when Dimitri bends down to mouth at his neck, half-kissing and half-biting, all Claude can think is that there are too many layers between them, that Dimitri’s armor is in the way, that he wants _more_.

Dimitri pulls back, finally, and they’re both breathing hard, and Claude’s trousers are a little uncomfortable. He wants to pull Dimitri back against him, he wants Dimitri’s teeth against his skin again, but Dimitri is looking at him like he’s something impossible, and for once Claude doesn’t know what to say.

“Come with me,” Dimitri says, finally, and it’s not exactly a request. He doesn’t look away from Claude, his single eye almost too bright, and Claude is reminded vividly that he doesn’t know what to expect from this Dimitri, doesn’t know what he’ll do or say. He doesn’t think he’s in danger anymore, but he’s also not entirely sure that isn’t just wishful thinking.

But he goes with Dimitri, because he was never going to do anything else.

He follows Dimitri through the forest, mountains looming above them. Dimitri knows exactly where he’s going, and Claude keeps track of each step so that he can find his way back, or so that he can find wherever they’re going again. Dimitri doesn’t speak as they walk, but he does look back at Claude now and then - suddenly, as if trying to catch him out. As if part of him isn’t sure that Claude will be there when he looks.

Claude doesn’t say anything. He simply follows.

It isn’t terribly far, but the sun has almost set by the time they get there, the shadows between the trees growing. Normally Claude would have made camp by now, found somewhere safe from wild animals and unpredictable humans to rest. Instead, he follows Dimitri until they come to a cave.

It’s a dark crevice in the rock. Dimitri ducks inside. Claude looks around for a moment, noting where he is, and then he follows.

Inside, it’s completely dark, but only for a moment. Then there’s the sound of movement, the strike of flint and steel, and a flame springs to light. Dimitri is lighting a fire, and the cave is illuminated.

It doesn’t look lived-in, exactly. He can’t have been staying here for long. He has some weapons in poor condition leaning against the walls, a beat-up bedroll not far from the fire. A pack, with what seems to be nearly nothing in it.

It feels empty. It feels like the bare bones of survival, and nothing more.

It feels like a place an animal might live, not a man.

Claude sets his own pack down and looks up to see Dimitri watching him from across the fire. He steps closer, not sure what to say. In the end, he simply walks to the fire and sinks down next to Dimitri without saying anything.

Dimitri takes his arm, pushes his sleeve up so his mark is showing again. Claude lets him, and he is rewarded by Dimitri’s fingers on his arm. Dimitri’s gauntlets are off now, so it’s skin against skin, and when Dimitri’s fingers skim over Claude’s soulmark, Claude doesn’t quite manage to choke back a gasp.

It feels - good. There’s a sharp shock of pleasure when Dimitri touches him there, something he’s never felt when he touched it himself. It sends shivers down his spine, and Dimitri looks up from his inspection of Claude’s mark. There’s something in his eye, a look Claude doesn’t want to name in fear that he might be wrong.

“I knew at the Academy,” he says before he can think better of it. But it’s the right thing to say, it needs to be said. Dimitri deserves to know.

He isn’t sure what he expects. Anger, maybe. Confusion. But Dimitri only looks at him.

“I knew you were hiding things,” he says, and in that moment he seems more lucid than he has since he stepped out of the trees. “I watched you.”

Claude wonders how he could have missed that, if he was really so occupied paying attention to Dimitri that he missed Dimitri paying attention to him. He wonders if it’s true. He wonders if it would have changed anything.

“I should have told you,” he says.

“Yes,” Dimitri says, and he presses his thumb against the mark on Claude’s arm, and Claude goes weak. “Because then I could have had you a long time ago.”

And then he kisses Claude again, hard, and Claude can’t do anything but kiss him back. When the kisses become hungrier, rougher, Claude knows he should put a halt to things - he _knows_ it, they haven’t seen each other in years, Dimitri clearly isn’t well, they ought to talk about so many things - but he can’t make his lips form the words. All he can make them do, in fact, is slide open for Dimitri’s tongue.

The kiss deepens, and Claude feels it in his bones. Dimitri pulls away then, and Claude watches as he removes his armor. Without it, he looks thinner, like he hasn’t been eating properly, and for a moment Claude is distracted from his lust by worry - but then Dimitri is on him again, a hand in his hair, dragging him closer for another all-consuming kiss.

Claude kisses him, and then Dimitri is over him, above him, pushing him onto his back. Dimitri’s mouth is on his neck, and first it’s a kiss but then it’s a bite, sharp and hungry, and Claude is embarrassed by the sound that comes from his own mouth. Embarrassed because he doesn’t cry out in pain, it’s a cry of pleasure, and his pants are growing tighter.

This is where he should stop things, he knows. This is where he should slow things down, make Dimitri talk to him, act like two civilized adults.

Instead he pulls Dimitri closer, between his legs, and it all goes downhill from there.

Dimitri is not gentle. Claude encourages it, pushing back against him until Dimitri grips his wrists and holds him down. Claude should be disturbed but instead finds himself pleased by the way Dimitri’s strength makes him capable of holding Claude down easily with one hand. He arches up against Dimitri, and Dimitri tugs his trousers down, pulls his shirt up, leans in to press hungry, biting kisses against the skin of Claude’s chest, his stomach, his thighs.

Claude is hard now, undeniably so. Things are spinning out of control - he is realizing that he’s not sure they were ever _in_ control. And Claude, usually so careful, is spinning out of control with it.

“Dimitri -” he says, breathless with need, “in my pack,” and Dimitri lets go of him only long enough for Claude to retrieve it, to dig through with shaking hands until he finds some oil.

It’s for sore muscles, really, something Claude thought would be necessary after hiking through the mountains for days. But maybe when he packed it this is what he was thinking of, somewhere deep down. Maybe this is what he wanted.

Dimitri doesn’t ask if he’s ready, doesn’t ask if he’s sure. He doesn’t seem to want to _talk_ at all, and right now that’s fine with Claude, right now he wants something very different. He lets Dimitri pluck the bottle from his hands, push him down to the stone floor of the cave again. It’s not particularly comfortable, it’s not silk sheets and burning candles, it’s not any of Claude’s foolish dreams as a child, but it’s _real_.

Dimitri undresses Claude roughly, and Claude lets him, trying to return the favor as best he can. But Dimitri is almost solely focused on him, hungry and pushy and absolutely intent, and he doesn’t want to take this slow. He doesn’t want Claude to dote on him, to pause for a moment at the scars marking his skin, to wrap a hand around his cock and stroke. He _allows_ it, but only for a moment, then he’s pushing forward, fingers coated in oil pressing into Claude.

Claude gasps, moves against Dimitri’s fingers - it’s painful, none of this has been gentle, but Claude is reduced to this: he wants Dimitri and he doesn’t care how it happens. He wants _this_, Dimitri over him and against him, his hard length pressing against Claude’s thigh as his fingers work Claude open.

His fingers slide out of Claude, leaving an aching loss behind, and his hands grip Claude hips, arranging Claude as he pleases. Then he’s pushing into him, and Claude cries out. Dimitri’s cock is considerably bigger than his fingers, stretching Claude, and it hurts but somehow the burn of it only make it _better_. Claude has always liked the idea of rough play, but he’d thought the reality might be unpleasant, and - it’s not, it’s _really_ not.

Which is good, because Dimitri doesn’t stop. Claude doesn’t want him to. He wants this, he wants his soulmark to mean something, he wants Dimitri to be unable to keep his hands off him, he wants to be _needed_ like this.

Dimitri bottoms out inside him, and he doesn’t wait, he starts moving, thrusting into Claude. He’s lost in it, gaze on Claude splayed out beneath him, hands gripping his hips hard, and Claude is lost too. He manages to get a hand around himself, stroking himself as Dimitri fucks him. 

Dimitri doesn’t say anything, but he’s not quiet either, breath coming harshly, wordless sounds falling from his lips. He moves slightly, fucks Claude harder, and the change of angle makes his cock slide against that perfect place inside Claude. Shocks of pleasure rock through him, he arches, cries out, moves back against Dimitri. His hand on himself tightens and then he’s coming all over himself.

The sight of it spurs Dimitri on, makes his movements more insistent, more powerful, and then he tenses and he’s coming too, spilling inside Claude, hot and thick.

He doesn’t pull out yet, but just rests atop him, weight heavy but warm. He presses more of those biting kisses to Claude’s shoulders, his collarbone, his chest.

The rocks of the cave floor are beginning to bite into Claude’s back, but he doesn’t push Dimitri off. He think he shouldn’t have let this happen, he should have insisted on some kind of a real conversation first, he should have - 

But it doesn’t matter, really. He’s wanted Dimitri for such a long time. Maybe this was always where they were going to end up.

He wraps his arms around Dimitri and holds on to him and thanks someone - Sothis, the gods of Almyra, whatever may be out there - that Dimitri is alive, and that Claude found him.

They never do talk, not really. Claude tries, later that night and in the days and nights that follow. He tells Dimitri of what has come to pass, the course of the war. He asks about Dimitri’s escape from Fhirdiad. He tells him that Professor Byleth is lost, that they’d all sworn to meet each other at the monastery, a date quickly approaching - but that he doesn’t think it’ll happen, not anymore. He asks about what Dimitri has been doing here, if he’s been taking care of himself, even though the answer is obvious.

Dimitri doesn’t engage. Not really. Oh, he hears Claude, and he responds to some of it with short, quiet sentences. But he doesn’t _talk_, he doesn’t explain anything.

Most of the time, he just watches Claude. He looks at Claude as if he isn’t sure Claude is real, and when it gets too much, he’ll reach out. He’ll pull Claude to him and run his fingers over the soulmark they share, though he hasn’t let Claude touch his even once. He’ll drag Claude into his lap and suck bruises into his neck until Claude is moaning against him. He’ll push Claude onto his back and rut against him, or spread his legs and take him again.

And Claude always lets him. It’s not like he’s innocent of that, either. He’s the one who slipped under Dimitri’s thin blanket that first night, pulling his own finer-quality one over the both of them, and reached down to stroke Dimitri erect again though he was still aching from their first time.

They’re both disasters, Claude with his nonexistent self-control and Dimitri barely on the edge of sanity.

Claude can tell that, can _see_ it, but he can’t seem to do anything about it. Dimitri won’t talk to him, not really, and though everyday Claude asks him to come back to the Alliance with him, he always says no. 

He’ll be safe there, he can heal, Claude can protect him. 

_No._

But Claude has an Alliance to run, a war to fight, and he can’t stay. He can feel the days counting down, but nothing he says seems to make any difference.

Is he really going to have to leave Dimitri here, like this?

Time doesn’t run out, because one day when Claude says _come back with me_, Dimitri turns to him and says _go._

Claude stares. “What?”

“You don’t belong here,” Dimitri says. He’s been quiet for most of the day - quieter than normal, which is saying quite a bit. “You’re distracting me.” He scowls as he says it, letting some anger slip through.

Claude can’t actually argue with that. Whatever Dimitri is trying to accomplish here - a one-man revenge plot against Edelgard? - Claude has most certainly been distracting him from it. Dimitri has barely left his side since he arrived, only venturing out into the forest occasionally. Plenty of Imperial patrols could have passed unaccosted, and that’s fine with Claude, because -

“You’re going to get yourself killed like this,” he says. He’s said it before. “Come back with me. You can fight back against them still, without doing this to yourself.”

“You don’t understand,” Dimitri says, and he stands up, pacing across the cave. “You don’t understand what they’ve done, you don’t understand what they want me to do. You don’t understand what _I’ve_ done.”

“So tell me,” Claude says.

“There’s no point in telling a ghost anything,” Dimitri says, and abruptly Claude feels exhausted.

He knows, he’s known since the beginning, that half the time - maybe most of the time - Dimitri isn’t sure if he’s real or not. He’s tried his best to prove otherwise, tried to show that he is not simply some figment of Dimitri’s damaged psyche. He’s touched him, held him, talked about things Dimitri would have no way of knowing. He’s whispered _I’m real_ into Dimitri’s ear in the darkness of night, when Dimitri holds onto him like he thinks Claude might disappear.

But it’s made no difference.

“I can’t stay,” he says, one last time, quiet and weary. “Come back with me, Dimitri. Please.”

Dimitri looks at him for a long time, and then he turns away. He doesn’t respond.

Claude leaves later that day.

He leaves Dimitri almost all of his supplies - all the food that’s left, his traveling blanket, even the pack itself. He can make do until he reaches the village again, and Dimitri needs it far more than he does.

He looks back just before the cave falls out of sight between the trees. Dimitri is standing there, in the entrance, watching him. For just a moment Claude thinks he might have changed his mind, but then he turns and goes back inside, silent still.

Claude goes back to the village. He finds Hilda. He doesn’t tell her anything then, not when it’s so raw, not when it still hurts. A few months later, over a bottle of wine, the story comes out. The sympathy in her eyes is almost too much to bear.

Back in the Alliance, Claude sends word to some of his agents that when they pass by that area, they should leave a small stash of food, some healing potions, a few extra supplies. _Mark it with a golden deer_, he says, and they don’t ask why, because he’s requested far stranger things before.

It’s all he can do.

Every morning when Claude awakens he rolls up his sleeve and checks his mark. He checks to see if it’s still there, still intact. He checks to see if Dimitri is alive somewhere. Every morning, he fears the worst.

He does this every day until the day he sees Dimitri again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the war, Dimitri and Claude get another chance.
> 
> Posted (but admittedly not written for) Dimiclaude Week 2020, 'soulmates'.

The war rages on. It doesn’t get any easier.

Claude is stretched to his limit, keeping the Alliance from falling apart. He knows it’s only a matter of time before things reach a breaking point. He has to plan for it, has to decide what to do - whether it culminates in an Imperial invasion, or in Gloucester and Ordelia defecting to Edelgard, or some third path.

He would prefer the third path. He has idea, ambitions, but whether he can do it or not… that, he can’t be sure of.

Through all of this, he does not forget about Dimitri. The mark on his arm is there, vivid and clear, and because of that he always knows Dimitri is alive somewhere. But anything more than that seems impossible. He can’t leave the Alliance again, can’t search him out. He sends supplies, receives word that his previous supplies have been taken, and that’s all he can do.

Dimitri has to be the last of his worries. He has so many.

Days turn into weeks, and then months. Claude’s life is a blur of careful political negotiations, reports from spies and scouts, and a constant undercurrent of worry, of disaster.

The Millenium Festival arrives.

Claude doesn’t expect much from it. Their professor has been missing for five years, and if they are still alive somewhere out there, they probably have more important things to worry about than a reunion promised long ago. He knows the others are busy, too - this war affects everyone. He shouldn’t spare the time to go, shouldn’t leave the Alliance for even that long.

But Claude has always nurtured a hope within him. He hopes for so much - for a future where people like him aren’t hated, for peace, for prosperity. For open borders and secrets revealed. For the Alliance, for a resistance against Edelgard’s empire and the pain and destruction is brings.

Is it so shocking that he might still hope for this, too?

So he goes. He travels to Garreg Mach, a place he hasn’t seen in years, and it’s - depressing, really.

Claude only spent a year at the monastery, but it holds a place in his heart regardless. Seeing it in this state, ransacked and empty, casts all his memories of those days in shadow. They were so young then, so foolish. So unaware of what the future might hold.

Except Edelgard, he supposes. She must have known all along.

He intends to simply spend the night there, then head back. He is trying to be practical, to expect nothing.

So when Professor Byleth appears, alive and well and looking as if they haven’t aged a day, he is overjoyed. Suddenly, plans he’d considered and thrown out long ago seem possible. And when the others show up, ready to fight and as full of life as they’ve always been, Claude feels the spark of hope he’s kept alive all these years begin to turn into a bonfire. Fighting bandits together, their old cameraderie returns with such ease that Claude almost can’t believe it.

He has spent so long walking a delicate line. He’d forgotten that things could be different.

They spend the night in the monastery, for all that it offers few comforts. Professor Byleth has no good explanation for their absence these past five years, so Claude doesn’t press it - and they have enough to talk about as it is. Everyone knows what Claude has been doing, even if few know the details, but they all have so much to catch up on. Even small things - Leonie’s hair, Lysithea’s march to adulthood, Raphael’s sister and her improvements to their home - need to be mentioned.

Just for that night, they can forget the war. Claude lets them forget it, helps it along, talking about anything but the thing weighing them all down. In the morning they’ll have to go back to it. In the morning, he’ll present his plan.

They’re up late, clustered around a fire in one of the courtyards, unwilling to go to bed yet. The monastery will need a lot of work before it’s truly livable again, and Claude already knows that will be one of their first tasks, should everyone agree to help him with his new plan. For now, what it means is that staying warm around a fire in the company of friends is infinitely preferable to splitting off alone and sleeping in cold, empty, ransacked dormitory rooms.

Ignatz has dozed off against Raphael’s shoulder, and Marianne’s eyelids are drooping as well. Lorenz is holding forth with a long, achingly boring story about his grand tour through Gloucester lands. Professor Byleth is the only one who seems genuinely interested - the rest of them are pretending with different degrees of success, except for Lysithea, who keeps rolling her eyes.

And then, in a moment, they are all alert.

None of them have slacked on their training over the years. None of them could afford to. That means all of them hear it, the clank of armored boots against flagstones, coming from the darkness.

Hands go to weapons. Claude grips his bow, too, his weariness fading away beneath the adrenaline. More bandits? Imperial troops? Thieves coming to see what the monastery has left for them to profit off of?

But it is Dimitri who steps out of the shadows.

Claude’s hand goes slack on his bow, but none of the others relax an inch. This is not surprising, he realizes a moment later. All save Hilda think Dimitri is dead. None of them, not even her, have seen the stark changes time and suffering have made in the former young prince of Faerghus.

“Stay where you are,” Leonie says. She’s on her feet, lance in hand. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Leonie,” Claude says, but then he isn’t sure what to follow it up with. He can’t say that Dimitri is no threat - he doesn’t know that. Despite everything that passed between them, Claude does not now know what to expect from Dimitri. So he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he puts himself between Leonie and Dimitri - between all of them and Dimitri.

Shadows flicker across Dimitri’s face, illuminated by the firelight. He looks no better than he did on that day long ago when Claude found him in the mountains - but he also looks no worse. Claude’s done his best to ensure that Dimitri had food, medicine, blankets. Maybe it helped. It certainly didn’t hurt.

“Dimitri,” he says, low and gentle, as if he’s talking to a skittish animal. He hears a soft gasp behind him - Marianne, he thinks - and then Hilda’s voice, quiet and a little unsteady, speaking to the others. Calming them, he hopes. Encouraging them to leave this to him.

“Claude,” Dimitri says, and his voice is rough. For a moment he looks blank, almost confused, and then his gaze sharpens, single eye glittering. “I thought I would find you here.”

“Did you?” Claude says. He smiles, holding his hands up to show that they’re empty, that his bow is still on the ground. He has a dagger in his belt, of course, but he may as well be unarmed for all the good that would do if Dimitri chose to attack him. He walks forward with measured steps. “That’s a pretty good guess.”

“It wasn’t a guess,” Dimitri says. He watches Claude approach. He is holding his spear - Areadbhar - but it’s resting against his shoulder, not held at the ready. “You told me you would be here.”

And Claude thinks back to those days, those nights, that fortnight he spent with Dimitri in the mountains. In his arms, beneath him, held close during the long nights. How he’d talked about all kinds of things, and how - yes - that had been one of them. He’d mentioned the professor, mentioned this meeting.

He hadn’t thought Dimitri had been listening. He hadn’t thought Dimitri had heard much of what he said, in those days.

“I did say that,” he says, and he lowers his hands. Dimitri came here looking for him. Claude doesn’t know what that means. He glances back at the others, all his Golden Deer. They’re watching him, some wary and some confused. He can’t read the professor’s face at all.

“I needed to know if it was real,” Dimitri says. “You. What happened before. All of it. I can’t - I don’t always know.”

And he is tall, he is strong, his armor is battered from countless battles. Dimitri is a terrifying figure now, a beast out of a tale, a vengeful knight seeking nothing but blood. But in this moment, as he looks at Claude, as their eyes meet, he looks - 

Lost.

“It was real,” Claude says, quiet and steady. “All of it.”

Dimitri looks at him for a long, long moment, and then he nods. It’s a nod of decision, a final and solemn thing. “Then I go where you go, my soulmate.”

There is another gasp from behind Claude - more than one. He manages not to wince. This isn’t really how he wanted them to find out.

But - Dimitri is here.

“It’s good to see you,” he says, and he smiles. “But it’s pretty late. Let’s all get some rest, and we can figure it out in the morning, all right?”

***

The others have disappeared to their respective rooms. Professor Byleth paused for only a moment, placing a hand on Claude’s arm and squeezing gently but saying nothing. Now it’s only him and Dimitri, and he doesn’t know where this will go.

“I guess you’d better come with me,” Claude says. He’s tired. He really did want to figure it out in the morning, but seeing the expressions on his classmates’ faces… he knows better.

He knows they will need him to have a plan in the morning. They’ll need him to have already decided what to do, decided where to go from here. And he thought he had, he thought he’d considered everything and come up with a scheme that might even work.

But now Dimitri is here, and he doesn’t know how Dimitri fits into that plan. He doesn’t know if Dimitri can be trusted to be part of it - but he also doesn’t feel like simply leaving Dimitri behind, or sending him away, is a good idea.

Does he feel responsible because Dimitri is his soulmate? Because he could not save Dimitri from Cornelia, could not convince him to come to the Alliance? Because he can’t fix Dimitri, no matter what bond they share?

Or is it simpler than that? Dimitri was his friend once. Dimitri is so clearly in need. And Claude, more than anyone, is in a position to give him something to hold on to.

He doesn’t know. He leads Dimitri through the halls of the monastery, down the hallway that once lead to both of their rooms. He’s been in his already - it’s a mess, but the floor is clear enough to sleep on, and he’ll be able to clean it up and repair the furniture in time. He pushes the door open and steps aside, motioning Dimitri in.

Dimitri enters, lance still in hand. He hasn’t put it down since he arrived, but that’s fine, because Claude still has his bow, too. He’ll sleep with it near to hand, because Garreg Mach no longer has guards. This place is not safe. Nothing is.

But with both Dimitri and his lance in it, the room seems awfully cramped. Claude shoulders his pack to the ground, sets his bow and quiver of arrows next to it, and turns to Dimitri.

Dimitri is looking at him. He’s hard to read, he has always been hard to read, and Claude doesn’t know what the right thing to say is.

He sighs. He is so tired.

“You really want to stay?”

“Yes,” Dimitri says. He sounds certain, though Claude isn’t sure how he can be.

“I was going to tell the others in the morning, so there’s no reason to keep it from you. We’ll be fighting Edelgard. With Teach back, we can pull together an army under the church’s banner, instead of the Alliance. I think we can do it, but it’s going to be dangerous.” Claude doesn’t actually think there’s much point in asking his next question. He already knows the answer. Still, he does it anyway, because he wants Dimitri to go into this with no illusions about what it means. “You can fight with us - I won’t lie, it’ll help. I’ll use you to rally forces from Faerghus as well. Are you sure you want this?”

“I’m sure,” Dimitri says. His voice has not wavered, but now it turns into something more like a growl, something far less human. “I want nothing more than to tear that woman from her throne and make her pay for what she’s done.” His hand on Areadbhar tightens.

“I figured you’d say that,” Claude says. He sighs. “Welcome aboard, then.” He sits on the floor unceremoniously, pulling his bedroll from his pack. When he looks up at Dimitri from this position, Dimitri looks about ten feet tall. Claude does not let it intimidate him. “Are you staying in here?”

Dimitri’s anger has faded away. He looks confused now, uncertain. “May I?”

Claude remembers, vividly, sleeping next to Dimitri in that cave. He remembers Dimitri holding him tightly, as if he feared Claude would disappear. He remembers that somewhere in the back of his mind he always feared he would wake to violence, delusion, anger, but he never did. He always slept safely.

“Yes,” he says. “At least for tonight.”

Dimitri moves a little awkwardly, setting his lance against the wall and taking a seat on the floor. He has a bedroll in his pack as well, and Claude recognizes it as one of the items he sent to the mountains, one that was left for Dimitri. Seeing it soothes something in him, and he almost reaches out. He stops himself.

“What changed?”

His voice is quiet. He is watching Dimitri, trying to read something in his eye, his bearing, his movement. Dimitri refused to come back with him before. He refused to believe that Claude was real, despite all the evidence. He refused everything that Claude offered, and yet now he is here.

Dimitri doesn’t meet his eyes. Claude doesn’t know whether it’s shame or something else that causes that, but he doesn’t force it.

“I don’t know,” Dimitri says finally. “I can’t… I see things. I thought you were one of them. That I failed you, or something else. But then the supplies kept showing up.” His shoulders slump, and he looks about as tired as Claude feels. “I remembered everything you said to me. I haven’t forgotten it. I remembered… this, that you said you’d be here. So I decided to come. To see if you were real. To prove to myself.”

Claude didn’t ask what he’d intended to prove. That Claude was real, or that he’d been a hallucination the whole time? He thought he knew.

“But you were here. And not alone.” There’s the sliver of a bitter smile on Dimitri’s lips, and he finally raises his head, finally meets Claude’s eyes. “I know I am haunted. I know I see things that aren’t there. But I cannot imagine any reason why I would see your Golden Deer, except that they are truly here. And if they are, then so are you.”

Claude smiles then, too. It seems awfully simple when Dimitri says it like that. Perhaps he ought to have brought Hilda along to the mountains - perhaps he could have avoided all these long months of uncertainty if he had.

“I am,” Claude says. “Are you disappointed?”

“I’m not sure,” Dimitri says after a long silence. He has not looked away from Claude. 

“You didn’t want me to be real,” Claude says, choosing his words carefully, fearing that what he says is true and knowing it probably is, “because that might mean you’re not alone.” His hand goes to his arm, to the mark there, covered by his sleeve. 

Dimitri sighs, long and low. “I don’t know. Half the time, more, nothing seems real. I’m nothing like a man anymore, Claude. I’m barely even a beast.”

Claude sits up then, and he reaches out his hand. “Give me your arm.” His voice is quiet but firm, and Dimitri obeys without seeming to think about it. He’s wearing gauntlets, armor, but Claude places his hand on that armor above where he knows there is a mark pressed into Dimitri’s skin. A mark he’s never touched.

“You’re staying with me because of this,” Claude says. It’s not a question. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Dimitri’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Claude says, “that you don’t owe me anything. Soulmates or not. This mark, this bond - it doesn’t have to mean anything.” He doesn’t know what he expects to hear. He doesn’t know what he _wants_ to hear. He only knows that Dimitri deserves to choose freely, that all people do. He knows that when they met before, he was not thinking clearly either - is he thinking clearly now?

He’s never been able to control his feelings for Dimitri, and he doesn’t know if that’s because of the mark or simply because of who Dimitri is. What he does know is that Dimitri is lost, and if he needs something to follow, Claude will give that to him. But he wants Dimitri to choose. To make that choice, instead of feeling that he must because of what he’s been told since birth.

“It does mean something,” Dimitri says. He looks Claude in the eye. “It made you come look for me.”

Claude doesn’t know what to say to that. He sighs, and lets Dimitri’s arm go. “Even so. You don’t owe me anything.”

“You don’t owe me anything either.” Dimitri moves, shifting where he sits. His eyes go to his lance against the wall, and then the door. Claude wonders if he feels trapped, if it’s been awhile since he’s been indoors like this. He wonders if Dimitri’s thoughts are drifting, if his ghosts are crowding him. But with what seems like an effort, Dimitri pulls his attention steady again. 

“If you want me to go,” he says, “I’ll go.”

It seems honest. It seems sincere. It seems - like Dimitri doesn’t know what he wants. Like he is lost, like he has been lost for some time, nothing driving him onward except revenge and the ghosts of the dead. Claude thinks that perhaps that is why Dimitri sought him out. He knows, when he is lucid, just how lost he is. Claude found him once, and tried to help. Dimitri found him this time, and maybe - maybe it’s because he wants that help, now. Even if he cannot quite put it into words.

“No,” Claude says, quiet but feeling a little more certain now. “You can stay.”

Dimitri’s shoulders slump, and it’s only then that Claude realizes how tense he was. He feared Claude’s answer. He feared being told to go?

Claude isn’t sure what to think about that, but he makes another decision then.

“Stay here. Fight beside me, and I’ll find a way to win this war. Sleep next to me, if you’d like.” He remembers that comforted Dimitri, when they were together in the mountains, and if he is being honest - it comforted him, as well. “But what we were to each other before… we won’t do that again. Not until you’re sure.”

Dimitri’s brows draw down. “Sure that I want you? I am already certain of that.”

And that’s - flattering, and Claude feels his cheeks flush, remembering Dimitri’s hands on his body, Dimitri between his legs. But it’s not what he means. 

“Until you’re sure that you aren’t choosing this because you feel like you don’t have anything else.”

He says it plainly, without an edge, but Dimitri still flinches. Claude understands. He wants to flinch too, when it’s laid out so clearly.

He wants Dimitri, badly. He’s made this choice already, and whether it’s because of his mark or regardless of it he no longer cares. But Claude was able to make this choice. For Claude, it _was_ a choice. He had other options. What options did Dimitri have? What options does he have now, lost as he is?

“I… understand,” Dimitri says, and Claude hopes that he does. He raises his head, looks at Claude. “But I’ll stay here tonight.”

It’s a decision, but it has the air of a question to it, though Claude has already invited him. Claude nods, and he spreads out his bedroll, and so does Dimitri. They don’t speak more that night - they’ve said enough. Instead they sleep next to each other, sharing warmth, sharing the closest thing either of them have to safety.

***

The war goes well. How could it not, when Byleth and the lost king of Faerghus are on their side? Claude creates an army - Alliance troops, Church soldiers, and a slow but steady stream of loyal Faerghus knights. Edelgard is strong, the Empire is strong, but between Claude’s schemes, the strength of their soldiers, and the church winning the hearts and minds of the people, the ending seems almost foreordained.

It isn’t, of course. It’s the product of long hours and late nights, blood spilled and hard decisions. Claude thinks of nothing but the best path to victory, and his friends and followers do as he says, and they win. Again and again. The Bridge of Myrddin, Fort Merceus, Enbarr. And then, rooting out the rot in Fódlan: Shambhala. Nemesis. The shades of the Elites.

It is a war for the ages, a war for the history books. Edelgard is not a weak opponent - she has her ideals as well, her followers, her own sources of strength. At times, Claude isn’t sure they’ll win. At times, he wonders if Edelgard is not wrong. The church is hiding so much. The people have been lied to for so long.

But truth is better than lies, and if Claude can shine a light on the truth, he will. Life is better than death, freedom better than conquest. He cannot convince Edelgard of that, and so she must fall to one of his arrows, her dreams must be crushed beneath the weight of his own.

And Dimitri fights alongside him.

At first Claude does not know what to expect. Dimitri is not well, not always tethered to reality. As an ally, can he be trusted? Will he lose himself in his rage, hurt someone that he shouldn’t? And it isn’t an ungrounded fear - Claude has already seen the depths of his madness, how easily he can wander off his path.

But he tries. Claude can _see_ him try. Whatever else he may be uncertain of, he’s chosen this path, he’s chosen to follow Claude.

Once, in the heat of battle, Claude sees Dimitri nearly lose himself. He clutches Failnaught, clutches the reins of his wyvern, afraid he will have to intervene. But then he sees - he sees Dimitri pull back. He sees Dimitri’s eyes, his free hand, go to the mark on his arm, the one that matches Claude’s.

And Claude realizes then that he has become the tether. That despite his words, despite his insistence that they cannot yet be together, that their bond means nothing without conscious choice, Dimitri has turned it into something else. A beacon that will draw him back from madness.

Claude doesn’t know what to think of that. In the end, he simply takes it for what it is, because they are in a war and he must be practical. If their shared mark can keep Dimitri from slipping over the edge, that’s good. And that is all that matters.

So they fight. Dimitri witnesses Edelgard’s death, and though he fights as fiercely as ever afterwards, Claude can tell something has changed.

They sleep next to each other sometimes. Not all the time - the fact of the matter is that Claude still wants Dimitri, knows that Dimitri still wants him, and it would be all too easy to reach out in the dark of night. To tell himself that despite what he said, both of them could use some comfort. It would be easy to lie to himself and say that comfort is all it would be.

But though Claude has few compunctions about lying to others if necessary, he tries not to lie to himself. Dimitri is his soulmate. He is already too attached, and Dimitri is not well, and it would be all too easy to fall into what nearly happened before. 

They may be soulmates. Dimitri may be stuck with him in one way or another, connected for the rest of their lives. But Claude still wants Dimitri to make that choice. Selfishly, perhaps, he wants Dimitri to choose him - but he knows that it may not turn out that way. 

So they don’t have sex. Sometimes Dimitri comes to his room, or his tent, and they sleep in each others’ arms. Sometimes Claude is the one who reaches out, and finds Dimitri, and lays next to him because he needs it, because even he desperately needs comfort from time to time. But they don’t touch each other more than that. Dimitri respects his wishes, or perhaps he’s working through everything that haunts him, Claude included.

Of course, even if they’re not sleeping together, everyone thinks they are. People see Dimitri come out of his room in the morning, they see the way Dimitri follows his orders with little disagreement. And though Claude trusts his Golden Deer on the battlefield, he also knew the moment they heard the word ‘soulmate’ that it would get out.

And it does. No one can prove it - though a number of people have seen Dimitri’s, only Hilda has ever seen Claude’s mark, and he knows that she won’t tell. But the rumor is passed around, and those who have seen Dimitri’s mark can read some truth into it, the way the symbols of their crests are entwined. Though it remains only a rumor, it turns into one that people are fond of, painting their alliance as something far more romantic than it truly is.

Claude doesn’t bother arguing. That would only make it worse, and besides, they’re not entirely incorrect.

He puts it out of his mind, as he puts so many things out of his mind. Claude is very accomplished at attending to various things at once, but with a war and a thousand or more moving pieces to worry about, he doesn’t have the time to care about rumors. It’s not the first time rumors have been spread about him, after all, though this one is rather more harmless than most.

He watches as Dimitri finds some kind of stability, as his friends return to cluster around him - even Dedue, thought to be dead. He expects Dimitri to move further from him as well, as he realizes he isn’t alone. But he still sees Dimitri touching his own arm, Dimitri still comes to his tent to sleep next to him. Claude doesn’t know what to make of that.

They fight. They win.

And afterward they must create a new Fódlan.

The war council argues, the Alliance roundtable argues, the nobles of Faerghus argue, the Church of Seiros argues. Everyone has their own desires, their own ideas of what must be done. But all must admit, in the end, that those who truly won the war hold the decision, and that comes down to this: three people in a room, deciding the future of a country.

Claude von Riegan, leader of the Alliance, commander of the armies that defeated the Empire and Those Who Slither in the Dark.

Byleth Eisner, wielder of the Sword of the Creator, advisor and strategist.

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, lost King of Faerghus, still clawing his way back from madness.

“I think you should probably be king,” Byleth says, matter-of-fact, difficult to read as ever. They shrug, looking at Claude. “You’re the one who actually did all of this. We just helped - you’re the one with the big dreams.”

Claude smiles at that, and it’s not as weary as his smiles once were. He is tired, yes, but during the worst of the war he felt almost as if death had already taken him. He’d always believed in their victory, but sometimes - sometimes the world went awfully dark.

“I agree,” Dimitri says, and Claude isn’t sure what to make of that, except that Dimitri has gotten used to following him. Perhaps the guilt he feels is what drives him to agree. “You are the best suited of us.”

“I’m flattered.” And Claude _is_, that’s the thing. Regardless of anything else, these two are some of the people he respects most in the world. To think that he has gained their regard enough that they would simply hand Fódlan over to him - well, it’s almost enough to make him reconsider his plans. And for a moment he does, thinking about what might happen if he stayed, what he could do, the difference he could make.

But he doesn’t need to be here to do that. Fódlan is already changing, and he has another land to attend to.

“But I’ve gotta say no,” he continues, and even Byleth looks surprised. “I’ve got other plans, and either of you could do just as good a job as I would.”

“Other plans?” Dimitri says, and his brow draws down. “I suppose it would be you of all people who would find something more important to do than rule the kingdom you conquered.”

Claude can’t quite tell if Dimitri is scolding him, teasing him, or something in between, but he finds it rather charming. Dimitri, as he finds his way back to true stability, becomes more and more the man Claude had thought he would be when they were younger. Still changed, twisted and altered by what he suffered, but kind as well, and strong, and with a true sense of justice.

“You know me. I’ve always got a scheme going. I’ll be leaving in a few days, and I don’t intend on coming back for awhile. So - who wants to be king?” Claude grins, as if it’s nothing, and Byleth lets out a small, amused huff.

“You’re leaving?” Dimitri is truly frowning now, a somewhat terrifying sight. His eyes are fixed on Claude, and Claude does not know what he’s thinking. A long moment stretches, and then, as if deciding something, Dimitri nods. “Then I will leave as well.”

“What?” Claude says, unable to stop his own shocked reaction. “You can’t be serious.”

“Where you go, I will go,” Dimitri says, unshakeable. 

Claude stares. “You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“Regardless,” Dimitri says, “I will be by your side.”

Claude doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know what to think. After a moment, Byleth coughs.

“Well,” their former professor says, deadpan and understated as always, “in that case, I guess I’ll have to take the throne. I think I’d better inform the nobles. It seems like you two have something you need to talk about.”

And, cowardly or perhaps just as intelligently strategic as always, Byleth beats a quick retreat, leaving them alone.

Claude is trying to put his thoughts in order. He doesn’t understand why Dimitri would decide something like that so suddenly. He is more stable now, he has friends and supporters, his homeland has been restored to him. To leave it all, simply to follow Claude? It makes no sense.

“Dimitri,” he says, but Dimitri raises a hand, cutting him off.

“I will not be king,” Dimitri says. He sounds so certain, so absolutely sure of this decision, that Claude isn’t sure he can argue. “I lost myself. I hurt people - many people. Dedue nearly died saving me, and I did not give that sacrifice the respect it deserved. I wandered lost for so long. You came to find me, you and no one else, and I even hurt you. I cannot be king, having done all of that.” He takes a breath, and he looks down, and when he speaks again it comes with an effort. “And - I don’t _want_ to.”

Claude could argue with that. Part of him wants to, very badly. Dimitri is not entirely well yet, he knows, and it’s true that he’s hurt people, but he would make a good king. He would rule well and wisely, if perhaps a little too carefully out of fear of hurting people again. It isn’t as if any of them truly deserve the throne, not when looked at like that - but Claude says none of this.

The most important part, he thinks, is the last part.

Dimitri doesn’t want to rule.

It’s not a surprise that Dimitri feels that way. What’s a surprise is that he’s allowing himself to choose that, he’s shrugging off the bonds of obligation and duty that have always tied him, even in his darkest days. Then, it was revenge and justice that drove him, all tangled up with his guilt and obligation to his loved ones. Claude would have expected more of that now, obligation drawing on Dimitri to take the throne, to do as his lost loved ones would wish.

The fact that he is saying no means something. He’s come a very long way. Surely it helps that Byleth seems willing to rule instead, and they both know how wise and talented their professor it - Dimitri knows he will be leaving his kingdom in good hands. But it’s not just that. It’s that Dimitri is, for once, living for himself.

Maybe.

“Not wanting to be king is one thing. But that doesn’t mean you _have_ to come with me,” Claude says.

“I would like to go somewhere where I will not be recognized. Somewhere I can start fresh, without expectations that I do not know how to meet,” Dimitri says, and that makes sense. “I don’t know where you’re going, but I imagine it’s somewhere far. And I - would like that.”

Claude nods, looking away, thinking. He hasn’t said the word ‘Almyra’ yet. Dimitri might change his mind, knowing where they’d be going, but he doubts it. Claude understands on a bone-deep level the desire to go somewhere new, the desire to claw your way out from under the crushing weight of how others see you. Even if he wanted to argue with that, he couldn’t. 

But they’ve been so carefully talking around the most important point of contention. Claude opens his mouth, ready to address it, but Dimitri gets there first.

“And,” he says, steady and sincere, “you are my soulmate. I wish to be by your side.”

Claude’s heart feels heavy. The truth is, he wants Dimitri to come with him. The truth is, they will always be bound together. How can he ever know that Dimitri is with him because he genuinely wants to be?

“You don’t have to do that,” he says. “I told you, you have no obligation-”

Dimitri steps forward, reaches out, captures Claude’s hands in his own. With the war over, he isn’t wearing armor, and neither is Claude. Claude feels Dimitri’s warm skin against his own. His hands are scarred, and briefly, vividly, Claude remembers how they felt on his body.

“You’re overthinking this,” Dimitri says, and there’s a hint of amusement in his voice. “I have made my choice. I made it long ago, but I understand that you needed me to find my way back to myself. I understand that you need to feel that I’m choosing you freely.” He meets Claude’s eyes. “I think you’ve convinced yourself that I don’t want this - that when you found me in the mountains I was too lost to truly know what I wanted. And perhaps that was true, then. But it hasn’t been true for some time now. I know what I want.”

“Dimitri -” Claude says, because he doesn’t know if he can take this, didn’t realize that all those times Dimitri’s gaze was on Claude he was seeing more than Claude realized.

“You are my soulmate,” Dimitri says, “but even if you were not, I would admire all that you are. If you need more time before you can accept that, I’ll give it to you. I’ll stay by your side wherever you go, and perhaps someday you’ll believe that I truly want you, that I have chosen you.”

Claude feels that all his words have been taken from him. Dimitri is right. Dimitri has seen his uncertainty, his desire to protect himself, his partially subconscious conviction that Dimitri could not truly want him. And, honest and loyal, he dismantles it so easily.

Claude feels his doubt, his uneasiness, turn into something hopeful, something delicate fluttering in his chest. His fingers tighten on Dimitri’s.

“I think,” he says, careful and deliberate though his lips are curving into a smile, “I’ve already made you wait long enough.”

And Dimitri pulls him close, slips an arm around his waist, and kisses Claude so gently that Claude feels he might fall apart, might simply collapse into pieces, only held together by Dimitri’s arms around him.

When they part, Dimitri is smiling too.

***

That night, Dimitri comes to his room. Though they hadn’t discussed it, hadn’t made plans, Claude is waiting for him. After their kiss, after facing the council, after all the decisions have been made - there is only this left.

Dimitri comes to him, knocking softly on his door. He waits for Claude to answer it, waits for Claude to let him in, and even after that he waits carefully. They’ve spent so many months sleeping chastely next to each other - Dimitri looks as if part of him believes that is what they’ll be doing tonight, as well.

But they’ve both made decisions today, and Claude has no intention of going back on his. He steps in close, stretches upward to tangle his hands in Dimitri’s hair and pull him down, down into another kiss, hungry and warm. He steps back and his hands go to the lacings of Dimitri’s shirt.

“May I?” Claude asks, the hint of a smile on his lips.

“Yes,” Dimitri says, and there’s a raspiness to his voice that turns it into something like a growl.

Claude has never forgotten their nights in that cave, how he lost himself in Dimitri. Dimitri’s insistence, his almost animalistic desire. This is nothing like that, Dimitri so carefully keeping his hands to himself, but Claude can still see it running under the surface. He can see the effort Dimitri is making to keep still, the way he wants to reach out. Claude thinks that if he allowed it, Dimitri would take him like he had back then, roughly and without holding back. Claude likes the idea of that - he’s not above admitting he enjoyed those nights - but that’s not what he wants right now.

Right now, he can admire Dimitri’s self-control, can admire how much care he is trying to take. He’s come so far. Claude saw that before, has seen it over the past months, but maybe it’s only now that he truly realizes.

Dimitri will never be the perfect king others might want from him. He may always be haunted, may always have a bit of madness in him. But he does not want to be king, and he has clawed his way out of the depths, and if he did it partially using Claude as a tether - Claude cannot be anything but flattered.

And this man, perfect or not, mad or not, is the one that Claude wants.

He knows he was foolish for denying this so long. He intends to make up for his mistakes.

His hands are clever on the ties, loosening Dimitri’s shirt and pulling it off, Dimitri ducking his head to ease the way. He pauses then, looking at Dimitri, reaching out to press fingertips to his scarred chest. Dimitri shivers at his touch, then covers Claude’s hand with his own until it is pressed against his chest, until Claude can feel his warmth and the soft, steady beat of his heart.

“Claude,” he says, gently, and Claude’s own heart feels overwhelmed.

Dimitri bends down to kiss him again. Claude leans into it and pulls his hand away, moving to Dimitri’s arm, trailing his fingers down past scars and muscle until they’re hovering over Dimitri’s mark. He hesitates, only for a moment, and then he presses his fingers to it.

Dimitri inhales, sudden and sharp, and Claude knows he’s feeling that strange rush of pleasure, that intensity that feels like nothing else. And for him - for him it feels different. A sense of connection, a sense of belonging. It feels right.

He slides his fingers across the mark, and then he catches hold of Dimitri’s arm, bringing it to his lips. He kisses Dimitri there, on that brand they both share, that mark that means some part of each of them will always belong to each other, no matter what may happen. Dimitri inhales again, and Claude’s other hand presses against his abdomen, sliding downward to cup him through his pants. He’s half-hard already, and Claude is no less affected.

Letting go of Dimitri’s arm, he looks up to meet his eye. Dimitri is flushed, cheeks a pretty pink. 

Claude reaches for the ties of Dimitri’s pants, hands a little less sure on those because of how much _more_ he wants now. “Get on the bed,” he whispers, pressing close to Dimitri, stealing another kiss as he unfastens Dimitri’s pants. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

And Dimitri obeys, his pants and smallclothes ending up in a messy pile on Claude’s floor. Claude doesn’t undress any more carefully, his need making him hasty, and he nearly tears his shirt pulling it off. Then he’s bare in front of Dimitri, and Dimitri’s eyes are on him, and he looks, too.

They’ve seen each other like this before. They’ve had each other before. But this feels - different, this feels like the beginning of something new. There is no doubt in Dimitri’s eyes, no lingering question of whether this is reality or not, whether Claude is really with him. And Claude’s doubt has slipped away, too. Dimitri wants him, wants to be with him, wants this and everything that goes with it.

Claude steps closer, curls his hand around the back of Dimitri’s head, and leans down to kiss him. There’s a hunger in it that he can’t control, and wouldn’t want to if he could, and he feels Dimitri’s hands slide up his thighs, cupping his ass, but holding back from exerting the mild pressure it would take to pull Claude into his lap.

Reluctantly, Claude pulls away, but only long enough to retrieve a vial of oil. It’s been a long time since Claude has been with anyone, but he knows what he wants now, he remembers the slide and ache of Dimitri inside him. He moves back to the bed and show Dimitri where he wants him - back against the wall, long body spread across Claude’s bed. He’s gorgeous to look at, and Claude straddles his lap, reaching down to touch him.

“Is this all right?” he asks, quiet and a little breathless. To finally be able to touch Dimitri again, and like this, where he can look his fill - it’s a lot to take in.

Dimitri’s hands settle on his waist, but he still doesn’t pull Claude in, apparently content to let him set the pace, make the decisions. “You can have me any way you want me.”

Claude looks into his face, sees the quiet sincerity there. He kisses Dimitri again, and Dimitri kisses him back, hungry and biting. There will always be those tiny traces of the man he once was, wild and lost. Claude likes that, likes that he has seen every part of Dimitri, knows every part of him.

He uncaps the oil. Now that they’re this close, he’s eager. He wants to raise himself up, press Dimitri into him, but as eager as he is he has to be careful. Dimitri is too big and it’s been too long, and Claude could so easily get carried away. He slicks his fingers up, but Dimitri stops him, takes the vial from his hand.

“Let me,” he says, and so Claude does. 

Dimitri’s fingers are bigger than Claude’s, but he pushes them into Claude carefully. One hand is steady on his waist, the other working its way into him, opening him up, one finger at a time. He gasps and lets his head fall forward against Dimitri’s shoulder as Dimitri works him open until he’s moaning, until his hips are moving back against Dimitri’s hand, until he’s hard and leaking.

Then Claude, fumbling a little in his need, wraps his hand around Dimitri’s length. He strokes, drawing groans of pleasure from Dimitri, slicking him up. He steadies himself and moves, positioning the head of Dimitri’s cock at his hole, and then Claude lowers himself down.

He goes slow, letting his body adjust, taking Dimitri in inch by inch. As needy as Claude feels, the stretch of it makes him whimper with pleasure. He doesn’t know how to descibe it, the feeling of Dimitri inside him, that sense of being filled, being whole. 

Dimitri is flushed, and breathless when he speaks, and all he says is “You’re so beautiful,” and then Claude begins to move.

They move together, Claude riding Dimitri, Dimitri lifting his hips to thrust into Claude. Claude’s hands are on Dimitri’s shoulders, in his hair, tugging and tangling. Dimitri holds on to Claude’s hips, tightly but not quite enough to hurt, holding him there, keeping him steady though Claude doesn’t really need it.

Riding Dimitri is rather easier - and much more pleasant - than riding an angry wyvern.

Claude sets the pace, slow at first and then picking up speed. Dimitri lets him, following his lead. Claude is not as careful as he should be after so long, he knows he’ll be sore the next day, but he doesn’t care. He needs Dimitri, he needs this. There’s nothing so satisfying as Dimitri inside him, as Dimitri’s cries of pleasure as Claude rides him, as Claude brings them closer and closer.

He kisses Dimitri, messy and gasping, his own cock sliding against Dimitri’s belly. Dimitri lowers his head, lips against Claude’s neck, sucking marks into the skin there and finally biting him, sinking his teeth in, animalistic and hungry. The pain of it makes his pleasure even keener, and Dimitri inside him is brushing his prostate with every thrust, and it’s all too much. The rush that hits Claude when he comes is overwhelming, and he hears himself cry out, and he thinks he says Dimitri’s name but he’s not sure.

The remnants of pleasure are still working their way through him as Dimitri grips his hips, holds him steady while pounding into him, chasing his own pleasure. Claude is relaxed around him, still moaning with each thrust, overstimulated and breathless. Dimitri tenses, moans, and comes, filling Claude with his seed.

They’re both limp and sated afterwards. Claude moves off Dimitri, letting Dimitri slide out of him, and leaves the bed only long enough to get something to clean them up with. His legs are a little unsteady. He can feel Dimitri’s cum sliding out of him, down his thighs, and it should probably be disgusting but it really, really isn’t. He feels marked, between that and the brand on his arm, the bitemark on his neck.

He likes it.

He makes his way back to the bed and cleans them both up, and Dimitri pulls him close, and they kiss with a need that is weary but still so real. Dimitri doesn’t say anything else, but he curls his large body around Claude and holds him close, and that’s how they fall asleep, wrapped around each other on Claude’s bed. When Claude wakes, Dimitri’s arms are still around him.

***

A few days after Byleth’s coronation, they leave Garreg Mach together. Claude turns back for one last look at the monastery, and then looks up at Dimitri, who has hardly left his side since that night in Claude's room.

“Are you sure about this?” he says.

Dimitri smiles at him, and he looks as if a weight has been removed from his shoulders. He looks free, he looks - happy. “About giving up the throne to be with my soulmate?” He reaches out, takes Claude’s hand in his. “They’ll tell tales of me.”

And they do, in the end. Years later, parents in Fhirdiad tell their children stories of the last king of Faerghus, who gave up his throne for love of his soulmate, who fought a war at his side and then left Fódlan, disappearing into the mists of history.

Children in Almyra hear a different story: that of the Unification King, whose loyal and valiant soulmate helped lay the foundations for peace between Fódlan and Almyra, whose shared devotion marked a new era of peace and prosperity, whose love never wavered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me through this fic! It definitely both ended up longer and took longer to finish than I intended, but I hope everyone enjoyed it! I appreciate every comment or word of support that I got. You're all amazing.


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